Chairman’s Concluding Declaration from the 5th International Turkish-Asian Congress, Building the Security In Asia and CICA

1- The Fifth International Asian Congress was held in İstanbul on 3-5 June 2010 in a constructive and friendly atmosphere.
The forum was organized by the Turkish Asian Center for Strategic Studies (TASAM) and theme chosen for discussion was “Building Security in Asia and CICA“. Representatives of think tanks, diplomats, media members, academics and experts from Turkey and other CICA member countries participated in the Congress.
During the two-day Congress, presentations and discussions were conducted in six separate sessions under the titles of “International Security and Asian Geopolitics“, “Security Institutions in Asia and Regional Security Policies“, “The Impact of Asymmetric Threats on Asian Security“, “Energy Cooperation and Politics of Energy Supply Security“, “Confidence Building Measures in Asia and Cooperation Opportunities“ and “Balance Between New Security Approaches and Democracy, Human Rights.“

2- During the Congress, representatives of Turkey and CICA member countries agreed to work together on building security and ensuring the consistency of efforts. It was also unanimously adopted that this decision be brought to the attention of the Heads of States and Governments who will participate in the “Third Summit of Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia“ (CICA), which will be held in İstanbul, 7-9 June 2010. It was hoped that the respective public authorities in member states would give their due considerations to this important process.

3- During its CICA presidency of 2010-2012, Turkey is expected to advance to a multi-lateral basis the principles of “High-level Political Dialogue“, “Economic Integration“, “Security for Everyone“ and “Multicultural Co-existence“ which are also the basic parameters of its foreign policy.

4- With Asia’s gradually becoming the geo-political and geo-economic focus of the world, Asian countries are also more susceptible to global developments. As a result, they have undertaken important roles in shaping the new international equations. However, Asia confronts a number of challenges and serious problems which are in need of closer attention:

• The juridical-institutional framework so essential for co-operation in the spheres of economics, politics and security are yet to be built. For this reason, Asian countries are substantially deprived of the ability to take common action against global problems.
* Asia is not able to overcome its own problems. As a result, outside intervention into domestic politics and security has complicated matters.
• The addition of non-traditional threats (water scarcity, environmental challenges, terrorism, natural disasters, energy, nutritional security, etc.) to existing problems among Asian countries makes mutual trust and cooperation even more necessary.

5- Shared values and traditional friendly relationships should be emphasized in order to enable joint actions. The nature of Asian security should be defined. At this point, first steps to enable joint action and collaboration by Asian countries and people on shared objectives should be taken across the Continent.

6- Both by its organizational structure and the number of it’s members and observers; CICA’s achievements can not be underestimated. However, this organization has not achieved sufficient international visibility. The competition of outside powers on the Asian continent has complicated both the security and domestic politics of the countries in the region. For this reason, the infrastructure and resources needed should be constructed in order to make CICA better known to the public as a project manifesting the dynamics peculiar to Asia.

7- As a sui generis institution where countries with contradictory interests are gathered, CICA should become an organization that is able to contribute to mutual security, stability, peace and welfare. CICA has reached an important position with its member structure and geographical dimension, compare to other organizations. Within this framework, it is not easy to progress, though it is not impossible.

8- New relationships that are more constructive should be developed among the regional cooperation mechanisms in Asia. Aligning other organizations’ activities with CICA would reinforce the global security environment. Therefore, the processes within CICA would contribute to G20 in the field of global financial crisis; to Initiation of Alliance of Civilizations in the field of cultural conflicts; and to United Nations in security issues.

9- Asian countries should interpret their potential within regional strategy and they should use them for regional interests. Regional powers should demonstrate their potential in the relations with global powers. For example, CICA, by contributing to security in Afghanistan may play an important role. The problems in Afghanistan are not unsolvable. Multilateral regional cooperation led by CICA could contribute to the solution of the problem.

10- Asia should be cleansed from nuclear weapons. Otherwise, it would be impossible to prevent the emergence of the serious problems based on mis-trust.

11- Security should be taken into consideration within a comprehensive framework including not only traditional challenges of military conflict, terrorism, separatism and drug trafficking, but non-traditional challenges of the environment, natural disasters, poverty, human trafficking, etc. Co-ordination should be built among different institutions concerned with these issues.

12- Providing security is the responsibility of all the actors both in the domestic and international arena. A security understanding in which every actor participates should be given currency. Yet, the destinies of the Asian countries are tied to each other. In this case, the contributions of civil society and think tanks in security arrangements should be strengthened. The dialogue initiated with this declaration should be developed and progress should be made by identifying new targets.

13- The principles of “Indivisibility of security“, “Comprehensive Security“ and “Security based on Cooperation“ should be realized. Especially, the emphasis should be placed on cooperation-based security where the absence of adversarial relationship are desired. In order to realize this objective, security and confidence building measures should be undertaken in an atmosphere of dialogue advanced by CICA. In this framework, the establishment of a “Conflict Prevention Center“ within CICA should be placed on the agenda.

5 June 2010, İstanbul